What do people think of the threats to boycott the 2008 Olympics? To me, it just seems unfair to the athletes to force them not to attend an event they’ve trained their whole lives for on the basis of the event’s location.

I think the suggestion of boycotting the opening ceremony, or turning backs during key sections, may carry a stronger message – I don’t think many are proposing a games boycott. The Dalai Lama isn’t, nor is our PM.

“During my last trip, I met several academics who are bitterly critical of the Beijing government. Yet not one advocated a western boycott of the Olympics. Most suggested that the games might be a force for at least some small good.”

I don’t think there’s much support for a boycott of the sporting event. As regards the opening ceremony it depends a fair bit on whether you see the Olympics as an inspiring celebration of global unity or as an exercise in nationalist grandstanding or, again, as a commercial extravaganza.

I’ll be boycotting the boring bits, same as always. When we had Earth Hour a short while ago I was going to boycott that also but instead I taped it on the trusty VCR and intend watching the highlight some time down the track when time permits. Maybe during the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

I recently downloaded Belloc’s The Servile State, and I was interested in the many contrasts between how things are now and the state of play then (the world Belloc was extrapolating from, in the full knowledge that things could well turn out differently). In particular, I was struck by the contrast between current US contortions over what is torture and a passing illustration of Belloc’s, that took it as given that people would be concerned about how to eliminate torture:-

“It is always possible by establishing a cross-section in a set of definitions to pose the unanswerable difficulty of degree, but that will never affect the realities of discussion. We know, for instance, what is meant by torture when it exists in a code of laws, and when it is forbidden. No imaginary difficulties of degree between pulling a man’s hair and scalping him, between warming him and burning him alive, will disturb a reformer whose business it is to expunge torture from some penal code.”

Up here in the Far North the current issue is the State decision to sell Cairns Airport and link this to funding for a required expansion of Cairns Hospital and it would seem to me this is the kind of issue where you frequently take a non-conventional approach?

There is an argument that the Airport sale should be justified on its own grounds rather than the sale of one specific piece of regional infrastructure being linked to provision of other essential regional service infrastructure?

There is also some disappointment of the decision to redevelop on the current site rather than build a new hospital at a new location. This leaves Cairns with all substantial (public and private) hospital facilities near the foreshore and potentially subject to cyclone inundation.

Additionally a chunk of the proceeds from the Airport sale for a land acquisition for a possible new hospital at some time in the future (likely at least 10-15 years+ if it happens) and also to relocate and resolve carparking constraints at the current location to enable the actual medical facilities expansion.

I’m not convinced the decision that has been made is a sound long term decision but what principles should be used to assess this? I’m also not convinced that the state of current credit markets makes it a great time to be flogging such public infrastructure assets to maximise value?